Editorial roles available with the Library and Information Research Journal

Are you looking for a new CPD opportunity? Are you familiar with research? Or do you want to expand your knowledge about research? Do you have a critical eye for detail, then read on..

Library and Information Research (LIR) is an open access journal published by CILIP's Library and Information Research Group. It publishes both refereed and non-refereed submissions. We welcome submissions of research articles, case studies, reports, and book reviews from both practitioners and academic researchers.

LIR is looking to fill a number of editorial roles. as described below. If you are interested please submit a CV and brief statement outlining why you are appropriate for the role which interests you. These (or queries about the roles) should be submitted to by email to Diane Pennington, Editor-in-Chief, by 15th May 2020 email: diane.pennington@strath.ac.uk

Making acceptance decisions, ensuring required changes to manuscripts are made.

Communicating with copy editors and the production editor to ensure the final copy is as expected.

Communicating and consulting with the Editor-in-Chief on a regular basis.

Attending online Editorial Team meetings, on a regular basis.

Ensuring that all necessary deadlines are met.

Communicating with potential authors and responding to queries.

Suitable for: someone who is confident with research methods and the research process, can work on own initiative, has attention to detail, is familiar with academic writing, has editing skills, able to give constructive feedback.

Production Editor

Provide a final editorial check of proofed copy before publication.

Layout of all journal content in PDF and HTML formats.

Working with Editors to ensure adherence to the journal in house style and to ensure the publication maintains a professional and consistent appearance.

Communicating and consulting with the Editor-in-Chief on a regular basis.

Attending Editorial Team meetings, via Skype, on a monthly basis and participating in the overall governance of the journal.

Ensuring that all necessary deadlines are met.

Communicating with authors and responding to queries.

Suitable for: someone with good IT and layout skills.

Copy Editors

Utilize LIR style guidelines and to ensure journal material is copy edited by ensuring that proper grammar and spelling conventions and appropriate style and formatting are addressed.

Verify each cited reference to the extent possible with available bibliographic resources and advises editor of any not checked.

Suitable for: someone with excellent English and grammar and attention to detail, proofreading skills.

Peer reviewers

Provide constructive and timely feedback on the quality of articles submitted to peer reviewed sections.

Communicating with editor.

Suitable for: someone familiar with research and research methods, familiar with a particular area of practice, familiar with academic writing.

The Library and Information Research Group has made the difficult decision to cancel its forthcoming event ‘Being a LIS Researcher Practitioner’ which was due to be held at Goldsmiths, University of London on Friday march 27th.

In recent days it has become clearer that hosting events in the coming weeks could potentially put the health and well-being of attendees at risk. We believe this is therefore an appropriate decision to take.

Apologies for the inconvenience caused by this decision, but we hope to run the event at a later date.

Kind regards,

The Library and Information Research Group Committee

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Library and Information Research Group

“Being a LIS Researcher Practitioner”
CPD workshop to be held at Goldsmiths, University of London, Friday 27th March 2020

This full day event is aimed at LIS practitioners who would like to learn more about how to use research to inform practice and decision-making and what it means to be a researcher-practitioner. The workshop will include presentations from practitioners sharing their experience of conducting research alongside their practice and will give attendees a great opportunity to share and reflect.

Cancellation fee of £25 or substitute attendee welcome.
A minimum of attendees is required for this event to proceed. It is recommended purchasing insurance in case of cancellation due to lower attendance levels.

The EBLIP Conference is a biennial conference designed to promote the use of best available evidence to improve library and information practice in all types of libraries. It aims to bring together practitioners, researchers, and students involved in critical and reflective information practice to think through new ways to address contemporary issues of evidence based practice in less isolated, more collaborative, ways.

The International Advisory Committee is inviting expressions of interest to host the next EBLIP conference in 2021. Deadline for expressions of interest are 31 March 2020. Please note this is a revised deadline.

Library and Information Research Group are holding a CPD workshop titled: “Being a LIS Researcher Practitioner” at Goldsmiths, University of London, Friday 27th March 2020.

This full day event is aimed at LIS practitioners who would like to learn more about how to use research to inform practice and decision-making and what it means to be a researcher-practitioner. The workshop will include presentations from practitioners sharing their experience of conducting research alongside their practice and will give attendees a great opportunity to share and reflect.

CILIP LIRG 2020 student #award given in recognition of an outstanding research-based Postgraduate dissertation or final year Undergraduate project. email: Anja.Badock@uwe.ac.uk include a copy of the project alongside a brief explanation of why you are nominating this individual.

LIRG is running a Research Practitioner workshop on Friday 27 March 2020 at Goldsmiths, University of London. This full day event is aimed at LIS practitioners who would like to learn more about how to conduct and use research to inform their practice.
The workshop will see practitioners from a range of LIS sectors share their experience of conducting research alongside their practice and will give participants a great opportunity to share and reflect.
There will be the option to attend the workshop remotely in addition to attending in person. Further details about this event, including a programme and booking instructions, will follow soon.

Please join the LIRG Committee for our Annual General Meeting on Tuesday 28th January at CILIP Headquarters, Ridgemount Street. The AGM will take place at 12:30 to 13:30. You can also join the meeting via Zoom, but please register your attendance so that we can circulate the link closer to the meeting. All group members welcome!

Our current Treasurer is hoping to step down at end of 2019 and we are therefore looking for an enthusiastic individual to take her place.

As Treasurer, your role would be to maintain LIRG's accounts, process all invoices and payments, provide annual accounts to CILIP, and present financial reports at our AGM. This is a great opportunity to develop your skills in budgeting and financial management, to meet interesting people from across the information profession, and to gain valuable experience in decision-making, time management and report writing.

We are looking for someone who is numerate, familiar with Excel, a good communicator and well-organised. You need to be a member of CILIP or be willing to join. Please note that this is a voluntary role, with reasonable travel expenses paid for.

Full training will be provided by our current Treasurer. You would also be required to attend a training session at CILIP’s headquarters in London.

For more information about the role and requirements, please contact our current Treasurer Kath Wright (kath.wright@york.ac.uk)

To be considered for the role please send brief CV and statement of your suitability for the role to LIRG Chair. Alison Brettle – a.brettle@salford.ac.uk by the end of December 2019

My name is Kamila Brown and I am a Senior Library Assistant/IT Support Assistant from Arts and Social Studies Library in Cardiff University. Thanks to the CILIP LIRG (Library Information and Research Group), I had an amazing opportunity to attend my first ever CILIP conference #CILIPConf19.
This year’s conference took place in Manchester on the 3rd and 4th July, in the University Place, conveniently located on Oxford Street, in the heart of the city. The conference programme offered a range of interesting seminars, workshops and keynotes. I must confess that I found it very hard to choose which of the five parallel sessions to attend! I decided, however, that I would attend sessions, which would mostly benefit my career path, and which are of a great interest to me.
On the first day of the conference, I arrived at the venue around 11 AM o’clock. Having missed the first keynote (due to my very late train from Cardiff) I began the conference with the ‘Don’t be afraid of Social Media’ workshop, as Mike Jones (University of Winchester) and Jo Wood (Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service (Cafass)), presented the world of social media platforms from a slightly different angle. Amongst the topics they touched on were, how to make the most out of social media to create your professional profile as a library worker, pointed out the benefits as well as negatives of using social media, and demonstrated how social media tools can be used for personal and professional purposes. My interest lies mainly in the former ones.
Jo, who is also the creator of Librarians with Lives (LwL) podcast and blog, pointed out that using social media doesn’t always bring positives, and that she, herself, finds it overwhelming and stressful at times. I can relate her remark to my own experience with social media, where seeing someone with far more followers that you have, and watching someone else’s updates adding up very fast, leaves you worried that you don’t know what to post or that your posts aren’t as great. This can be intimidating. It was actually comforting to know that it isn’t just only me feeling this way. On the other hand, Jo and Mike highlighted that social media can bring many positives, and this includes, learning, gathering ideas, being a part of global communities, keeping informed on the latest news, the immediacy of information, etc. These, in particular, are great benefits of using social media for professional purposes. Interestingly, the results gleamed from an online survey conducted last year (involved library workers), showed that people who were already using social media found them helpful, useful, informative and engaging. The key, as Jo and Mike emphasize, is to think about who you want to be. Others, such as strategizing your content, curating your feed, managing your time, checking facts, finding your tribe, and joining an organised chat were the tips which I found the most useful for building and managing my own social media profile.
They also pointed out that some users remain clear about which platform they choose for professional or personal purposes. The presenters, however, also pointed out that some users adopt the ‘profersional’ approach (yep, no typo there), whereby an individual chooses to apply a mix a professional and personal content on social platforms. This, for example, can be observed on Twitter.
Jo and Mike also talked about different types of social media users. There are two broad categories, i.e. passive (lurkers) and active (broadcasters) users. In the survey that they conducted there was also a category of ‘an engager’. This made me aware that at this point in time, I am 99% of the time a passive user, or a lurker, especially on Twitter.
In the context of building one’s professionalism and identity (whether it is an online one or not), the keynote, which definitely stood out for me was the one delivered by Liz Jolly, Chief Librarian at the British Library. What I mostly admired about this keynote is that Liz brought her personal experience into the presentation, and for me as a librarian in training, this is a unique opportunity listen to, and learn from it.
“The mission of librarians is to improve society through facilitating knowledge creation in their communities” (R. David Lankes). With this quote, Liz encapsulated the key point of librarianship. As life changes, communities are changing with it, but, ‘what we do, is enduring’.
One of the biggest challenges facing librarians that Liz highlighted is dynamism. The services that we provide are continuously changing, and us librarians in result, are exposed to continuous, almost lifelong learning. She didn’t seem to only mean completing professional courses or doing a degree in Librarianship, but more importantly she stressed the importance of reflective learning. The way to be a better professional is through reflective practice. Looking at Liz’ synopsis in the CILIP conference booklet (prior to the conference), my attention was particularly drawn to this statement “[…] securing the long-term future of libraries and librarianship means going back to the roots of our profession and looking ahead with confidence.” And this constitutes the quintessence of reflective learning.
Another important aspect of the profession that Liz pointed out were learning from each other and developing resilience. In the history of the librarianship we can observe times where the profession suffered from a lack of funds, etc. We librarians therefore must articulate what we do, and we must demonstrate our value to the society. Above all, Liz highlights “let’s stop pretending that we are neutral because we are not”. Being neutral is not an answer.
Our role revolves around enabling learning and changing people’s lives. Also, core to our roles, as she continued, are “listening to, and learning from, our communities”, as they [communities] best understand and identify their needs.
In her presentation, Liz also addressed the lack of diversity (this also touches on social class). I must admit that her presentation was the most motivating and inspiring to me, and above all, unforgettable.
One of the most important outcomes for me from the CILIP conference is that I finally had the great opportunity to meet library professionals from various sectors. From the beginning of my professional career, I have always worked in the HE sector and this conference opened some new routes for me, in which I can look at many topics from a fresh perspective.
I would wholeheartedly recommend attending the CILIP conference in Manchester, especially to those who never had this chance before. The CILIP Conference is a great way to celebrate of our profession, and us, information professionals.

LIRG is a CILIP special interest group focused on promoting the value of information research and linking research with practice.

Please help us develop engaging and relevant professional development events by completing this survey. Completion of the survey will enter you into a prize draw offering free places on the EBLIP10conference virtual programme.

The survey should take around 5-10 minutes to complete. (https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/LIRGEventsSurvey2019 )